LINCOLN ON TRIAL.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume III, Issue 736, 20 June 1916, Page 10

LINCOLN ON TRIAL.

THE SELF-CONFESSED SPY.

CHARGE OF FORGERY.

By Cable. — Press Association. — Copyright (Received June 20, 11.55 a.m.) LONDON, June 19.

Ignatius Tribich Lincoln has been committed for trial on charges of forgery, on which he was extradited from the United States.

Lincoln made a long, rambling statement, in which he pleaded guilty. He said that his crimes were due to ambition. He received £IO,OOO from Mr A. S. Rowntree, M.P. (of the firm of Rowntree and Co., Ltd., cocoa manufacturers). His prosecution, he said, was really traceable to the Admiralty, which believed him to be guilty of treason. He said that at the outbreak of war he offered to the Admiralty a scheme which would have destroyed the German Fleet a year ago.

[lgnatius Tribich, who assumed the name of Lincoln on becoming a naturalised British subject, is a Polish Jew. He became a member of the House of Commons on the Liberal side, which presumably accounts lor the gilt from Mr Rowntree. He left for America shortly after the outbreak of war, and has since often boasted of his espionage teats on behalf of Germany, He was arrested on Broadway, New York, as the result of a disturbance caused by his failing to pay a cafe bill, and was extradited, to Great Britain on the charge of forgery which he is now facing. Presumably other and more serious charges will be preferred against him.]